


Arms Outstretched

by SunGirl



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: I can't stop worrying about this so I had to fix it to comfort myself, M/M, Post-Uprising, Uprising Spoilers, yes the title is an adventure zone reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 16:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14109663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunGirl/pseuds/SunGirl
Summary: A response to the end of Uprising.Against orders, Hermann drifts with Newt again to save his mind from the Precursors.





	Arms Outstretched

**Author's Note:**

> A quick, probably over emotional and not at all well thought out story that I wrote in three hours after coming home from Uprising. I'll probably edit it later and make it, like, well written, but for now I just needed to fix this and get all my emotions down and share them with other people.

For the first time in ten-- now nearly eleven-- years, Hermann thinks he understands the kind of desperation that drove Newton to disobey direct orders and drift with a kaiju brain.

At the time, he had thought it reckless, even insane. Maybe he still does. But as he straps on the second drift helmet, he finds he doesn’t care.

The other end of the device is already connected to Newt, who is currently baring his teeth at Hermann, snarling in a tone and register that shouldn’t be possible with human vocal cords. If it wasn’t for the restraints placed on him in the PPDC’s secure cell, Hermann thinks Newton might try to choke him again.

 _No._ He reminds himself. _No, that’s not Newton. The Precursors are what’s doing this._

“What are you doing?” One of the creatures hisses in Newton’s voice. “You really think you can save him? Pitiful.”

Hermann ignores it, hands shaking as he lifts the device that will activate the neural link. Newton would probably have some sort of catchphrase for this moment. But Hermann has never had the other man’s flare for the dramatic.

He just flips the switch.

Like the last time, it begins with his own memories.

\---

_Finding Newton trembling on the floor of their old lab and feeling terror seize him, falling to his knees, screaming words he himself doesn’t even hear. He deactivates the makeshift pons cap and watches Newton go limp, his panic rising as he shakes the other man. “Please, Newton-- Newton you can’t-- wake up--”_

_The expression on Newton’s face when the war ends, the pure elation, the solid feeling of the arm he puts around Hermann’s shoulder. The two of them leaning on each other, exhausted, overjoyed, sometimes he wonders if even then the Precursors were beginning to poison Newt’s mind._

_Two years later, watching Newton offer to shake hands with a severe-looking young woman, and being refused. “I don’t shake hands.” The woman says in precise English. “But I am very interested in your work, Dr. Geisler…”_

_Now he’s seeing Newt in person for the first time in the four months since he accepted Ms. Shao’s offer. The other man looks even more exhausted than he did over video, and there is something in his eyes that Hermann doesn’t recognise. Over the next seven years, during which the two men will contact one another with increasing infrequency, Newt will never look any healthier._

_The first time he’s allowed to speak to Newton after what is now being called the Shao Industries Incident, much to Liwen Shao’s chagrin. Newt looks worse than Hermann has ever seen him, pale and shaking, dark circles under his eyes and beads of sweat standing out on his skin. If Hermann had to place it, he’d say Newt looks like an addict deprived of his source._

_Three weeks after the Incident he’s searching Newton’s apartment, feels his stomach drop when he finds the brain and pons cap in the bedroom. And that’s when the idea comes to him. He nearly ransacks the apartment before he finds the second headpiece, but it’s going to be well worth it._

_“No.” Ranger Lambert says, shaking his head. “I’m sorry Dr. Gottlieb, but we can’t take that risk. How do we know the Precursors won’t just take over your mind too? We can’t lose you.” And even then, Hermann knows what he has to do._

\---

His memories catch up to now, and he’s washed in a blinding blue light. His head instantly feels like it’s going to split in two, and the pain keeps mounting. Distantly, he feels himself fall to his knees, and the Precursors’ otherworldly laughter echoes in their universe as well as his.

“Stupid, weak creature.” The voice is louder than anything he’s heard in the waking world. Hermann isn’t sure, but he might be screaming from the pain. “You should not have come here. You will fail, and we will take your mind in turn.”

_No._ Hermann thinks, and even getting his mind to form that thought seems to take all of his strength. He cannot seem to remember where he is, or why. He’s searching for something. Something that was stolen from him. He needs to take it back.

The laughter again, impossibly loud.

Hermann is kneeling on a platform, the Precursors surrounding him on all sides. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, all staring down at him, and Hermann finds himself unable to move.

“You cannot resist us. You will fall as he did.”

Newton. That’s right. He’s here for Newton.

_You will let him go._

“Hermann!”

He whirls around, head spinning, and sees him.

“Newton!”

The man is trapped, a spherical cage of twisted blue strands, what looks like electricity crackling across its surface. He looks so small, so far away, compared to the Precursors on every side.

“Hermann, run! Get out of here!”

Of course he would miss the point.

“I came here to find you, idiot!”

“You can’t fight them, Hermann! No one can! You have to leave me!”

Always stubborn. Hermann would roll his eyes if he had the energy.

Even as he has that thought, Hermann feels a surge of strength for the first time since he entered the drift. It’s small, infinitesimal even, but it’s enough that’s he’s able to struggle to his feet, square his shoulders, and lock eyes with Newton.

“Not a chance.”

He suddenly finds himself much closer to Newt, no more than ten feet from the man’s prison. This close, he can see that Newt is crying.

“Hermann, please! Go! They’ll hurt you!”

“I’m taking you back.” Hermann insists, half swimming, half walking forwards through the strange ethereal space. He’s barely moved at all, however, before he feels himself being restrained. Precursors have latched onto him from every available angle, shrieking and chittering, tugging him backwards as he tries to move towards Newt.

“No!” Newton screams. “Let him go! Hermann, you have to get out of here!”

“We can fight them!” Hermann says, struggling to break the creatures’ hold.

But Newt shakes his head.

“I can’t, Hermann. I tried, but I-- I’m so sorry, Hermann. They won. I’m not strong enough.”

“Not alone.” Hermann admits, now fighting to keep Newt in view as more and more Precursors overtake him. “Alone, I can’t fight them either. But neither of us has to be alone. We can do this like everything we’ve ever done that mattered. Together.”

“I-I can’t--” Newt sobs. “Hermann, th-they’re too strong. They’re i-inside me. It _hurts--”_

“I’m here!” Hermann calls desperately, managing to shove away a Precursor with one arm, although another takes its place almost immediately. “I’m here for you!”

Newton looks up at him, expression hopeless, exhausted.

“Why, Hermann? Why did you come here? You should have stayed away!”

Despite everything, Hermann stills momentarily, staring at him.

“After all this time, after seeing inside my mind, you still don’t know?”

Newt just stares back, uncomprehending.

“I love you, you idiot!” Hermann screams, renewing his struggle against his captors, and suddenly he finds himself able to knock them back, wrenching his arms and legs from their holds and moving forward. “I came back to this hell to find you, because I refuse to believe that you’re lost!”

He reaches the cage and forces a hand through the bars, ignoring the sparks of electricity that shoot through him. He finds Newton’s hand and grasps it firmly, feeling a strange mix of affection and anger fill him.

Hermann glares at Newt, gritting his teeth.

“Don’t you dare give up!”

The change in Newton is like flipping a light switch. His face loses it’s exhaustion, it’s strain, and a smile stretches across it.

“Never, dude. I’d never give up on you.” He squeezes Hermann’s hand, and the unbearable pain of the drift lessens slightly. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

They both turn, facing the hoard of Precursors bearing down on them.

“We can do this.” Newt says.

Hermann feels something within him, an impossible strength, and looking at Newt, he knows the other man feels it too. He nods.

“Together.”

And then the world around them turns to fire.

\---

Hermann opens his eyes to see the floor rushing up to meet him, throwing his hands out just in time to catch himself. He sits there for a moment on his hands and knees, panting, shaking, tasting blood in his mouth.

“Hermann?”

“N-Newton--”

Hermann forces himself back up to his knees and sees Newt, still bound by wrist and ankle to the chair, looking about as sick as Hermann feels, but grinning like a maniac.

“Hermann--” He pants, staring down at the other man. “We did it. You-- They’re gone. They’re gone, Hermann!”

Hermann can’t help but smile in return.

For a moment, they just stare at each other, and Hermann marvels at how different Newton looks, how much like himself. He wonders how he could ever have mistaken the corrupted, possessed version of Newt for the real thing.

“Hermann?”

“Yes, Newton?”

“Could you let me out of this chair? Please?”

“O-Oh.” Hermann pulls himself shakily to his feet, finally removing the drift helmet from his head as he stumbles over to the security controls. He scans his badge, his high level PPDC clearance immediately giving him access to the locks on the doors, as well as Newton’s restraints.

He powers those down and Newton pushes himself to his feet, legs shaking with every step as he walks towards Hermann, who watches uncertainly.

“Newt--”

He is cut off as Newton grabs him by the shoulders, pulls him close, and kisses him.

“I love you too.”


End file.
